Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy has never handled storms well.

When he was a child, before Phil found him, he’d huddle between the houses in villages in an attempt to stay dry. He always ended up soaked regardless, hair dripping with water and shaking violently from the cold, and the stale bread he’d stolen days prior would end up wet and nauseating, and he’d be forced to pilfer more as soon as he could. More often than not, he’d end up with a painful hacking cough for the following few days. Once, he’d taken refuge by the lava vat under the awning of a blacksmith’s house, and he remembers that being the most comfortable sleep he’d had in months. It’s a shame he was awoken with a boot to the stomach from a man twice his height and at least three times his weight. He’d fled as soon as he’d seen the mildly threatening metalworking tools the man held at his side. Storms were the closest he ever got to returning to one of the shelters that he’d been forced to stay at in the beginning. He never did return, but storms almost made him want to.

It was better, of course, after Phil took him in, on a farm with golden fields and a screen door with a green painted frame. He wasn’t wet or hungry or sick anymore, but he’d always been embarrassed of the way the crack of lightning made his breath catch in his throat. His room had been the attic, above Techno and Wilbur’s rooms, and each roll of thunder had him convinced that the roof would be torn off, and he’d be sucked into a tempest of wind and rain and electricity. One time, about a year after he’d arrived there, the four of them had been eating dinner, and a bolt of lightning had scared him so badly that he’d let out a shriek and toppled out of his chair. Wilbur had teased him mercilessly for it, asking him are you scared, Tommy? Of a little thunder? It’s just a storm, you know. It’s just a storm. Humiliated, angry tears had welled in his eyes, and they fell when Phil had whispered, quietly, cut it out, Wil. He’s just a child. Tommy had been eight years old, and he’d been pissed. He couldn’t believe they thought he couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t believe that Phil had called him a child.

(The secret was that he was one. He’d just never been given the chance to act like it until then.)

It never rained in L’manberg. No matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t remember a single time in which L’manberg had seen rain. It’s one of the reasons he’d loved it so much. Even if some days were cloudier than others, the sky always remained devoid of the dark, ashy gray of rain clouds. The sunset was colorful and breathtaking, every time, no matter what- no matter who was president, or which war was being fought. No matter who lived and who died, who won and who lost.

And then, Tommy had been exiled.

Tubbo had looked at him with eyes the color of the ocean, and with all the warmth of it, too. His eyes were so cold. There was no hint of his best friend in his face, then. None of the warmth, or joy, or forgiveness that he’d come to know him for. Goodbye, Tommy, he’d said, and Tommy had wondered if he’d said it because he was leaving, or because that was the last of the real Tubbo that anybody would ever see again.

You’re exiled from everywhere that’s been touched, Dream had told him.

Then, for the first time in months, Tommy saw rain.

It’d rained fast and hard. So hard that, for a moment, Tommy imagined that it wasn’t rain, but millions of tiny pebbles falling from the heavens.

He was cold, and helpless, and… and scared . He would never admit it out loud, but he was. For the first time in a very long time, Tommy was left without a place to call home. Suddenly, he was seven years old again, hungry and cold, too small to kill a sheep for wool or a cow for food, and definitely too small to make himself any sort of substantial shelter.

Suddenly, he was a terrified child, and he was alone.

(He resolutely suppressed the way it made his heart yearn for Phil. For his dad. He pretended like he didn’t feel it, because as much as his needy heart told him that Phil was safe, his head knew he wasn’t. Not anymore.

Besides, he had Wil- Ghost bur. He had Ghostbur, and that was enough for him.

Ghostbur didn’t tease him for the way he flinched at every flash of lightning. Tommy is confused by the way he almost wishes he would.)

It’s hard to stay healthy, in Logstedshire. Tommy finds himself sick half the time, and at a certain point he just gets used to it. The days might be hotter, with the sun bearing down on him mercilessly, but the nights are so much colder. He develops a sort of ever present cough, but he decides that he probably brought it upon himself. He’s the one who refuses to sleep in Ghostbur’s cottage, after all- he’d rather deal with having a runny nose than the guilt of sleeping in the house his dead brother crafted for him. Ghostbur doesn’t even sleep. After a while, he didn’t even visit. Eventually, it shifts from guilt to simple stubborn indignance. What, does he think Tommy can’t make anything on his own? Does he think Tommy needs everything done for him? Does Wilbur still think he’s just a child, even in death?

He’s not Wilbur’s baby brother anymore. He’s grown up. He’s fought in wars. He won independence for his country, and then lost his place in it.

He’s been through some shit, and he doesn’t need his older brother to coddle him anymore.

Then, it was only Dream, and Tommy changes his mind. He does need Wilbur. He needs him back, because without him he’s all alone, and he’s lost the last living remembrance of his past he had left.

But Wilbur doesn’t return. (And neither does Ghostbur.)

Not even to come to his party, which, really, was less of a party and more of a cry for help. Help, because he really doesn’t think he can do this alone for much longer.

Coincidentally, it rained that night, too.

He remembers thinking Dream was being very kind, then.

He remembers laughing in the rain, smiling for the first time that day, throwing the trident with wild abandon. He remembers not being afraid of hitting the ground too hard and stopping his heart.

(He remembers secretly wishing he could find the courage to let it happen.)

He remembers throwing the trident straight up, letting it carry him so high that the air began to thin and his chest began to hurt a little from the pressure. So high above the clouds that the rain turned into delicate white flakes. He rose till he was soaking wet and freezing cold, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care, because the higher he got, the less he could hear the rain thundering against the ground. The less he could hear the whipping wind and crashing waves of the ocean. The less he could hear Dream. 

He rose until he could hear nothing. The world was perfectly silent, perfectly still, and there, for a split second before he let himself fall, he could almost imagine he was floating. Such a perfectly dark, empty world.

For a moment, he was completely alone.

It’s how he imagined death must feel. Ghostbur said he saw nothing, after all. He can only hope that nothingness was as peaceful as it was there, so high above the world.

Then, he began to fall, and every emotion that boiled just below that artificial elation came flooding back to the surface.

He suddenly remembers all of the anger and disappointment that burned between his ribs. He remembers all of the loneliness and desolation that slowly turned each drop of his blood to ice.

(He remembers the creeping terror that whispered in his ear,

Are you now alone?

Will you be forever?

I don't know, he'd whispered back.

But, secretly, he had thought,

Yes.)

When it rains the next night as well, Tommy begins to think he must have some sort of Zeus-esque, controlling-the-weather-with-his-emotions bullshit power. 

(Not Zeus, he thinks. Poseidon. Theseus was the son of Poseidon.)

Of course, he doesn’t actually. He just thinks it’s funny how it only seems to rain when bad shit happens to him. It was like the sky opened up when it sensed the feeling of misery, and the clouds were simply too empathetic to resist.

For a moment, he feels a hot flash of guilt when he realizes that nobody comforts the clouds when they cry. They cry for those below- they weep for their sadness and joy and anger and fear, and all they do is curse them.

He looks up into the vast expanse of the sky, raindrops dripping down his cheeks and into his ears, and thinks, you’re just as sad as I am, aren’t you?

And then Tommy realizes he’s talking to fucking clouds, as in nonsentient congregations of gas, and he tells himself to chill out before he becomes fully emo or something. 

(As pathetic as it is, he saw the sky as a companion, then; something to confide in.

A friend, of sorts.

You see, he could scream his pain into the sky as loud as he wanted, and the sky would keep his secrets till the end of time.)

★★★★★

There is no sky in the nether.

Well, there is, when you manage to tunnel far enough above the cavernous ceiling- but it’s more of an empty, blurry void than a sky.

Either way, he does not trust this sky with his secrets. He doubts it would even listen if he tried to share them.

He knows for a fact that this sky cannot cry. This sky was not empathetic, and it would not weep for him or anybody else; it didn’t care.

This sky watched with a sadistic grin as everything that Tommy cared about fell apart beneath it.

As he stands on the edge of his screaming ledge and pitches forward, he finds himself longing to see the tears of his sky again.

★★★★★

Tommy’s eyes flutter open at the sensation of water hitting his skin.

His head is lolled back, dangling, and he stares up into the inky black sky as rain begins to fall.

You again, he thinks. I’ve missed you.

A sharp gust of wind brushes his hair- which has gotten long in his negligence, he should really get on that- off his forehead, and if he didn’t know better, he’d say that was the sky telling him it missed him, too.

He tilts his head to the side, and when he sees that he is far, far above the ground, he begins to panic.

But then he hears strong, steady wingbeats, and he realizes that of course there’s a reason he’s suddenly this high off the ground, and his skyrocketing heart rate begins to curb.

So Phil took him out of the nether. Phil’s flying, and he’s taking Tommy somewhere. He’s holding Tommy like a damsel, and for a moment, Tommy considers throwing himself out of Phil’s arms to plummet to his death, simply out of indignation.

It wouldn’t be quite like the lava, but, well. You get what you get.

He decides against it, as he knows from experience that Phil would fall with him before he ever let Tommy go, and even if he somehow managed to thrash his way out of his grip, Phil was incredibly agile with his wings. He’d catch Tommy midair before he even got close to the ground.

He doesn’t look at Phil. He refuses to.

“Where are we going?” He asks, and he feels Phil’s hold on him tighten instantly.

Tommy supposes that’s fair. He was just pondering escape.

“You’re awake,” says Phil, and Tommy feels blood rush to his cheeks in stubborn embarrassment at the memory of falling asleep on Phil in the nether. Like he was a little kid or something, a little too tuckered out to stay awake.

He doesn’t address it, instead asking again, “Where are we going?”

“I told you.” It unsettles Tommy, the way he can no longer read the emotions in Phil’s voice. He thinks he can hear anger, but there’s something else, too; something Tommy can’t identify. “I’m taking you home.”

“I’m exiled from L’manberg, though. You can’t take me there.”

Phil is quiet, for a moment, aside from the regulatory breaths he takes as he controls their flight. Tommy begins to shiver- it’s cold, and he’s wet, and he’s still missing a shoe. His ragged clothes certainly don’t do much to combat it.

“...I’m not taking you to L’manberg, Tommy.”

He sounds nervous, but determined.

“Where is home, then, if not L’manberg?”

The rain hitting his face slows and transforms into soft, white snow.

Phil doesn’t answer, and to be honest, Tommy doesn’t really need him to. He thinks he knows exactly where they’re going.

Techno always did like the cold.

Tommy hates the idea of seeing him, of staying with him. He does. Really, he does.

But he knows full well that he doesn’t have a say in the matter. That Phil will take him there regardless of what he thinks or feels. He doesn’t have any control here.

He never really does, to be honest.

He’s learned time and time again that some things aren’t worth fighting over, so he doesn’t.

Tommy doesn’t speak again, and neither does Phil.

★★★★★

You know, Techno was having a nice evening.

Earlier in the day, he and Carl had gone on quite a relaxing ride in the snow. Just to let Carl run, and to let Techno feel the wind in his hair. The voices had been a bit quiet, that day, and he’d been able to revel in the relative calm.

He’d made some stew and read halfway through one of the numerous books on his shelf. He’d sat by the fire, and thought, this has been a good day.

Then, he’d heard the strong beats of Phil’s wings as he landed. Phil, Phil, Philza Minecraft, Dadza, the voices chanted excitedly. He’d go out to greet him, maybe help him carry things in if he needed it.

Techno opened his front door, and decided that, no, you know what, nevermind. This was a bad day. This was a very, very bad day.

Hurt, the voices begin. Hurt. Help. Techno, Techno, Technoblade must protect, protect the hurt.

Phil stood there, face barely lit by the moonlight and the faint light cast by the lanterns that hung from his roof.

He made quite the imposing figure, stood there straight with his wings splayed out against the night sky, snow falling in droves around them. Like an avenging angel or something. Despite what the voices say, though, he doesn’t seem injured; he seems perfectly fine.

Evidently, though, they weren’t talking about Phil.

If Techno had to guess, he’d say they were talking about the tall, blond teenager that lay unconscious in his arms.

The voices always had particularly loved Tommy.

He must be right, because suddenly, the voices go completely silent.

“Phil,” Techno exhales, breathless out of confusion and anger. (And if his heart beats harder when he sees how his shirt hangs off him like he’s lost everything but his bones, or the way his body hangs so limply, he blames it on the cold.)

Phil steps forward on steady feet, but Techno can see the way his wings tremble with anxiety. He can see the seeds of panic that sprout in Phil’s eyes.

“Techno, bring me all the magma cream you can find.”

He’s taken aback by the unforgiving tone of Phil’s voice, and it rubs him the wrong way. This is his house. He has a right to know what’s going on.

“Phil, what is he doing here?” He demands. They’ve stayed secluded for this long; they can’t afford for Tommy to blow it all. He’s too loose lipped. Can’t keep a secret for the life of him.

“And blankets, too. Go,” Phil urges, leaving no room for argument.

Techno isn’t really known for complacency, though, so. “What is he doing at my house?”

"Now , Technoblade.”

Phil stares at him, and Techno stares back. With the way he says it, there’s no doubt that it’s meant to be taken as an order, but Techno chafes at the idea of simply doing what he’s told with no explanation behind why.

There is nothing malicious or power hungry in Phil’s eyes, though. Techno knows he wouldn’t order him around like that if it wasn’t important.

If that wasn’t enough to convince him, the fear in Phil’s eyes definitely is.

Techno huffs, but he storms back into the house.

He hurries to his chest room- specifically the chest which holds most of his brewing ingredients- and begins to rummage around for magma cream. While he searches, he hears Phil puttering around gathering supplies. He hears the clinking of potion bottles and countless chests opening and closing, as well as frantic murmuring as Phil tries to decide which potions would be best- “Healing? No, no, regeneration…” Curiously, he also hears kitchen cupboards, and the sound of the tap in the sink. He wonders what that’s about.

He’s managed to find a few small jars of magma cream, and depending on what Phil plans to do with it, Techno decides that’s probably enough. He races upstairs to his room, magma cream clacking together in a small satchel attached to the waist of his pants, and snatches the two blankets off of his bed. Then, he takes the ones from Phil’s room, because they’re the only ones in the house beside the one on the back of the couch in the living room. 

As he gathers his things, he wonders why the voices are being so quiet. They never do this- they’re always there, quiet or loud, whispering chaos in his ear. He can’t think of a single thing that would make them go silent like this.

He shakes away the thoughts in order to focus on the task at hand. With his and Phil’s blankets and the living room blanket combined, he has five in total, and he thinks that should be enough, right?

 He speeds back down stairs and goes to ask Phil if there’s anything else he needs him to do, but the sound of a soft snuffle distracts him before he can.

He turns to see Tommy lying on the couch, and he feels every particle of air leave his body at once.

There’s no way, he thinks. There’s no way this is my little brother.

Whoever lies on Techno’s couch is alarmingly thin. He’s not quite emaciated, but his ribs are visible through the large tear in his shirt- which is all but torn to shreds, along with his pants and the neckerchief he wears that Techno always told him made him look like a dog. He’s absolutely filthy, with dirt scuffed over most of his body, most notably his hands and knees, but also his hair (and he might be upset about the dirt on his couch if he weren’t so concerned). His face is gaunter than he remembers, and even closed, there are deep purple bags carved beneath his eyes. His hair is longer, too, but what’s more alarming is that there’s blood in it. There’s blood on his pants, too, and he seems to have bruises that spiderweb across his cheekbone. 

His entire image seems to have lost its color. His hair, which has become more sandy, dirty blonde than the golden blond he remembers. His skin, which has taken on an almost sickly pallor, desaturated and grey. Even the red of his clothes has faded and torn.

The only piece of him that still holds color is his lips, and they’re not the color they should be. They’re tinged an unnerving sort of purplish blue. It’s strange, but the first comparison that comes to Techno’s mind is that they are the color of forget-me-nots, and Techno suddenly realizes why Phil wanted all those blankets. It’s only worsened by the violent, frantic shivering that envelopes his entire body.

This can’t be Tommy, he thinks.

But he sleeps like Tommy does, or- or did. The soft snuffles that he emits. The restless shifting of his eyes beneath his eyelids. The twitching of his feet, like he can’t stop moving even in sleep.

Techno doesn’t want this to be Tommy. 

He brushes the rain soaked hair away from his face, and he hates the tiny scar he sees on his hairline. He hates it, because it’s the same scar he gave Tommy when he’d accidentally clipped him with one of his tusks while messing around when Tommy was eleven. He hates it because he’d always harboured guilt for hurting him, no matter how much Tommy had insisted that the scar was cool. He hates it because it means it has to be him.

Then, Tommy’s eyes open, and Techno can’t help but flinch at how grey they are.

Techno expects Tommy to throw a fit upon seeing him. He expects him to bolt upright, to shove him away, to yell and curse him to hell.

At the very least, he expects him to slap away Techno’s hand, which is still hovering, frozen in surprise, over his head.

He doesn’t expect Tommy to meet his eyes dully and sigh in resignation. He doesn’t expect for every drop of the fire that had once burned in Tommy’s eyes to be reduced to ashes. He doesn’t expect for him to roll onto his side, facing the back of the couch, and close his eyes, like he doesn’t find consciousness worth it anymore.

He doesn’t expect that reaction to make him so unsettled.

Tommy should never act like this.

He waits for Tommy’s familiar rage, and it doesn’t come.

(He hates the way he misses it.)

“Phil,” Techno calls, and Tommy doesn’t even shift. “Phil, he’s awake.”

“He’s what?” Phil calls back, mildly panicked, clearly elbow deep in some medical cabinet.

“He’s awake!”

“Shit,” Phil mutters. “Okay. That’s good, that’s good. I’ll be right there.”

Phil appears around the corner leading to the kitchen, and he is carrying a numerous assortment of potions in his arms, like Techno expected. He thinks he can spot several regeneration potions and one strength potion, as well as a bundle of bandages, antiseptic, and a wet cloth laid over his shoulder. However, what Techno did not expect was for him to be carrying a platter of sliced bread, precariously balanced atop the stoppers of the potions.

“I could’ve helped you carry that,” Techno points out.

“I’m good, I got it,” Phil says, and nearly sends the bread directly onto the floor when one of the bottles almost falls while trying to set everything on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“Yeah, uh huh, really looks like you got it there, Phil.”

Phil sends him a look, and Techno has to suppress a snort in spite of himself.

“Also, you know we have steak in the kitchen, right? That would help him heal faster-”

Phil finally manages to settle all of his items safely on the table, taking a seat on the rug in front of Tommy, and sighs. “Yeah, but he needs the carbs from the bread. It’ll help him regulate his body heat.”

“If you want, I could go fill the bath with warm water?”

“No, that could burn him, or send his body into shock,” Phil says. He pauses, and then adds, “Thank you, though.”

Techno hmms passively.

“Could you start laying those over him, please?” Phil asks.

Techno goes for the first blanket in the pile, and then hesitates.

He digs his own blanket out of the pile and lays that one on Tommy first, because it’s got wool on the bottom. The rest can go on top for warmth, but that one he knows is soft, and he figures that one should go on the bottom, since that one will be touching Tommy’s skin.

Phil works on unstoppering his various potions as Techno lays each of the five blankets over Tommy’s trembling form, who Techno knows that as much he may seem like it, is not asleep. He knows because he’s not snuffling or twitching his feet, and his eyes are still beneath his eyelids.

Tommy reacts in exactly one way throughout the exchange, and it’s shoving his nose above the edge of the blanket when Techno lays one too high up. Techno casually lifts the edge of the blanket and rests it over Tommy’s nose again, just to fuck with him. Tommy’s nose scrunches in irritation, and Techno huffs softly.

He removes his nose once more, and Techno covers it up again.

When Tommy frees himself for the third time, Techno lays the final blanket so that the edge is almost high enough to cover his eyes.

He doesn’t like the jab of disappointment he’s given when Tommy doesn’t play back, that time.

It doesn’t last long, though, because Phil places a gentle hand on Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy doesn’t react. Techno sits on the arm of the couch by Tommy’s feet and watches.

“Tommy,” Phil says softly.

Tommy doesn’t move.

Phil repeats his name and doesn’t get much more of a reaction.

Phil looks at Techno as if to say, what do I do? and Techno shrugs back as if to say how should I know?

Phil gives Tommy’s shoulder a squeeze through the blanket. He licks his lips nervously.

“Tommy, I have some potions that’ll make you feel better. Do you think you can drink them for me?”

There’s a tense moment of silence, before Tommy finally takes a breath.

“I don’t want it,” he says, slurring his words just slightly, voice shaky from the shivers wracking his body and probably something else, too. The words are so quiet that Techno has to strain his ears to hear it.

Phil pauses for a moment, taken aback, and says, “They’ll help, Tommy.”

Tommy’s shoulders hunch, just a bit, and he curls a little more into himself. He burrows his face further into the blankets, and it makes it even harder to hear him when he eventually says, again, “I don’t want them.”

Techno is reminded, for a moment, of when they were both younger, and Tommy would stubbornly refuse potions when he was sick, simply because he didn’t like the taste, and Phil would end up having to essentially force feed them to him to help his recovery along.

The only difference was that Techno remembers a lot more fiery indignance and a lot less cold indifference.

Phil swallows thickly. He looks from Tommy to the potions a few times, seeming to debate with himself, before he sighs and sets the potion back among the others.

“Okay. That’s okay.” 

Phil looks at Tommy with sad, sad eyes, and Techno has to say that he agrees. As annoying as he finds Tommy, he’s- he’s his little brother. He’s Techno’s little brother, and this version of him… honestly…. It scares him, a little bit. He wants his firecracker of a gremlin child back. He doesn’t like it when he’s cold and quiet and still.

It doesn’t feel right.

“I’ve got food, too,” Phil suggests, a small, comforting smile habitually donning his face despite the fact that Tommy can’t see him. “What about that?”

“I’m not hungry,” Tommy murmurs, and Phil’s face falls. His expression becomes desperate, and the tips of his wings begin their subtle quaking. Techno considers, briefly, trying to convince Tommy himself, but if he’s honest, he thinks that would probably only serve to drive Tommy further against it.

“Please, Tommy,” Phil says, and Tommy says nothing. “You need to eat. You’re injured, and sick, and you can’t get better if you don’t eat anything-”

“I’m fine,” Tommy insists, and Techno sees Phil regard him with a sad kind of look that Techno has seen many times. It’s a look that he knows well.

It’s a look that says, you’re not, but I don’t want to make your pain any worse by making you admit it.

“Please,” Phil whispers. “I just want to make sure you’ll be okay.”

The words “because Wilbur wasn’t” remain unspoken, but Techno is sure that they heard them just as loud as he did.

Tommy lets his silence hang in the air for a moment, and Techno is sure that if Tommy had been himself, he would’ve found some sadistic pleasure in their bated breaths.

Tommy huffs, jerking his chin out from under the blankets, and mutters, “ Fine. If I eat the stupid bread, will you leave me the fuck alone?”

In spite of Tommy’s harsh words (which chatter a little bit, with how violently he’s still shivering), Phil’s shoulders relax, and a relieved smile spreads across his face.

They’re not in the clear yet- not by a longshot- but it’s a step forward. It’s progress.

Techno even finds himself cracking a little grin.

“Sure,” Phil says, and his smile bleeds into his voice.

Phil helps Tommy sit up- though Tommy brushes his hands off more than once- and as soon as he’s securely upright, with the blankets pooled around his waist, he seems to fade again, staring blankly into the space ahead of him. He doesn’t react when Phil holds the bread platter out to him. Instead, Phil has to actively place a slice of bread into his shaking hand before Tommy seems to move on autopilot, raising the bread to his mouth and taking small, tentative bites. But they’re bites all the same, and they both watch attentively as Tommy eventually nibbles his way through one slice of bread, then two. His shivering calms, for the most part, about halfway through the second slice.

Upon being given the third slice of bread, Tommy simply holds it in his hand. A moment goes by, and when he doesn’t raise it to his mouth, Phil says, “Are you gonna eat that one, Tommy?”

Tommy jumps, slightly, like he’d forgotten they were there. “Oh. I- That’s enough, for me.”

The slices aren’t exactly big, so Techno struggles a little bit to believe that two of them would be enough for Tommy alone.

“Are you sure?” Asks Phil. “There’s- there’s plenty, so have as much as you want.”

“I’m full,” Tommy says simply. Though the shivering has mostly stopped, he’s hit with another bout of them. It abides soon after, but Techno glances at Phil doubtfully.

“Tommy-”

“Phil, if I have to eat any more bread, I will vomit on you. My stomach’s going fucking crazy.”

Tommy’s tone is slightly more lighthearted- not quite joking, but not really serious, either.

Phil’s quiet for a second, and then he lets out a slightly hysterical snicker. “Okay, okay. No more bread.”

Tommy’s shoulders seem to droop just slightly, relieved.

Phil picks up a jar of magma cream, then, and Tommy’s eyes lock onto it instantly. “What’s that for?”

“It helps combat hypothermia,” he says. “It’s imbued with warmth, which is already a good thing, but the magical properties of it mean that you can use it without risking burns or sending you into shock, like other direct methods of heat.”

Tommy stares at him blankly, as if to say, okay, and?

“You put it on your skin and it helps you warm up,” Techno pipes in.

Tommy doesn’t move.

Phil sighs, and says, “Just take your shirt off, Toms.”

Tommy scrunches his face once in confusion, before a flicker of realization spots in his eyes and does, with clumsy hands and stiff arms, and Techno realizes that he wasn’t confused about what the magma cream did. He was confused because, somehow, he didn’t realize that he needed it.

He doesn’t really think about that, though, because he’s too distracted with the state of Tommy’s torso.

It’s not quite as filthy as the rest of him, probably due to the vague barrier his shirt provides to the rest of the world, but it’s still mostly covered in a thin layer of dirt. Alongside that is a large, sprawling bruise that spreads up his left side like a horrific watercolor painting of blues and purples and reds. There are numerous bloody scrapes on the same side, most notably a large scab that spans most of his forearm and elbow. The ridges of his bones pushing at his skin don’t really make the picture any less distressing, and it leaves Techno wondering how much his brother has eaten for the past few weeks. It definitely wasn’t enough, that’s for sure.

What Techno’s eyes lock onto, though, are the long, perfectly straight cuts that mostly litter his ribs, aside from one or two on his stomach and one longer one on his back. To go with those are a number of thin, white scars, which clearly come from the same source as the cuts, having healed.

Techno knows what those are. He knows, because he’s been the one to give those kinds of wounds to many, many people.

They’re warning blows. The kind a sword wielder deals as a way to say, look at what I can do when I’m not trying to kill you. Imagine what I could do to you if I was.

A strange sort of anger flickers alight in Techno’s chest.

Who the hell had been threatening his brother into submission for so long that he had wounds in every stage of healing?

Really, Techno shouldn’t have gotten so used to the silence, because he nearly flinches when the voices return full force. He hasn’t done that since he was a kid.

Hurt! They all seem to scream in tandem. Injured! Protect. Techno must protect! Brother hurt! Kill. Kill. Blood. Make them pay. Blood for the blood god!

Techno shoves them down for now, because he recognizes that those protective instincts won’t help them now. He doesn’t even know who did this to him yet, and as much as his fingers itch for the hilt of a blade and he suddenly feels far too light without his armor, he knows that they need to deal with Tommy’s physical wellbeing first.

That doesn’t stop his blood from absolutely boiling, though.

“What?” Tommy asks.

Neither of them have the heart to answer, especially at the revelation that Tommy apparently finds nothing wrong with this.

“Jesus, Toms,” Phil mutters, looking destroyed. “We gotta get those cleaned.”

Tommy doesn’t reply, only looking vaguely uncomfortable.

Techno meets Phil’s gaze, letting the bloodlust that rolls through his body in waves show in his face. Phil’s sad eyes flash with danger, a threat , for just a moment, and he gives a miniscule nod as if to say later. 

Techno nods back.

“But- but first, we gotta get this on you,” Phil says unsteadily, beginning to unscrew one of the jars of magma cream.

He reaches to scoop some of it into his hand, before Tommy interrupts him. “I can do it myself,” he insists.

He goes for the jar in Phil’s hand, and then seems to decide against it, instead reaching for one of the ones still on the table. His hands are uncoordinated and they shake violently, making unscrewing the lid a far larger struggle than it would’ve been otherwise. He can’t seem to attain a strong enough grip to easily loosen the lid, and he ends up fumbling the jar entirely and dropping it harmlessly onto the rug beneath him.

Phil looks at him pointedly, but not unkindly, and places it back on the table.

“It’s alright, I’ve got you,” Phil says, and Tommy’s cheeks flush red. Techno can’t tell if that’s the blood suddenly returning to his face as he warms up, or if he’s embarrassed.

“I’m not a child,” Tommy mutters, and Techno bites back a smile as the hint of the Tommy he knows peeks through.

So young, the voices say. So young! Smaller than Technoblade. Too small. Too fragile. Protect.

“I know you’re not,” Phil responds, at the same time Techno says, “Yes, you are.”

Tommy shoots him the most annoyed, sharp look that he possibly can, and it’s the most vibrant thing he’s seen Tommy do since arriving here. He considers that a win.

“....I know you’re not a child,” Phil repeats slowly. “And I’m not trying to treat you like one. It's just that hypothermia is a bitch, and it’s normal for you to be so shaky. It’s easier for me to do it. Besides- you always put it on the chest, stomach, and throat first. You never put it on your arms or legs first, because that can send cold blood to your heart, which can be fatal. So, considering you’d have to put your hands in it in order to apply it anywhere else, I think you should let me do it.”

Tommy glares down into his legs, refusing to look at either of them. 

“....Fine,” Tommy relents. “Whatever.”

Tommy lies down, in line with Phil’s instructions, who directs him to position his body in a way that’s supposed to increase blood flow or something. Palms up, he keeps saying, despite Tommy’s wrists inevitably lolling back inwards. He takes a generous scoop of magma cream and begins to work on spreading it evenly over Tommy’s chest and stomach. Luckily, after a few minutes, Tommy’s shivering disappears entirely, leaving him looking a bit boneless as his body finally relaxes.

Techno shifts uncomfortably. He’s getting restless, just observing. He wishes there was something for him to do, something to keep his hands and mind busy, an excuse to do something other than watch, uselessly, as his father tries in vain to mend his brother’s broken mind and body.

Technoblade is used to doing everything himself. It’s a strange sort of pain, to know that there is nothing he can do to help in that moment.

“You have no idea how disgusting this sensation is,” Tommy whines when Phil begins to rub the magma cream into the base of his neck.

“Yeah, well, you were about an inch away from hypothermia setting in, like, ten minutes ago. I would call this worth it, I dunno," Phil shoots back, sarcastic- though Techno can see the genuine concern that hides underneath his joking tone.

Tommy grumbles something unintelligible, but doesn't complain again.

“Roll over, onto your stomach,” Phil says a few moments later, when he deems the front of Tommy sufficiently covered.

Tommy does as he says, and shivers once, shortly, as the air hits the skin of his back, which is still uncushioned by the magma cream. Phil glances briefly at Techno, who wordlessly rises from the arm of the couch to add some logs to the fireplace.

“You’re getting magma cream all over my perfectly good couch,” Techno mutters as he turns over some charred wood with the fire poker. It spits a few embers at him, and he doesn’t flinch when one lands on his wrist.

“Deal with it, bitch. I’m dying or whatever,” Tommy retorts, muffled by the cushions, and Techno can’t help the hysterical wheeze that escapes his throat at the brutality of his tone. Phil snorts, too, and chuckles quietly as he begins to rub the magma cream into Tommy’s spine.

“You’re not dying, Tommy,” Phil says, smiling. “Not anymore.”

Tommy’s quiet, for a second.

Then, he mumbles something, quiet and bitter, into the couch cushions. It sounds suspiciously like something along the lines of “what a shame.”

The smiles slide off of both of their faces like they’d never been there in the first place.

Oh no, the voices cry. Something’s wrong? Tommy. Why? Dream. Not okay.

They don’t speak anymore. It’s a slightly more uncomfortable silence, but it’s not exactly tense, either; like none of them know if saying anything more will make things better or worse.

What tension there is eventually melts away, between the heat of the fire and the sound of the wind howling outside. Orange light emits from the fireplace, washing the woods of Techno’s living room in warm, soft golden hues. The voices go quiet, again, and Techno is left to enjoy the silence, which is only broken by the crackling of the fire and the breathing of his father and brother. Phil’s breaths are deep, and steady, and calm. Tommy’s breaths whistle, slightly, but the sound still reassures him, somehow.

The fire reflects off of Techno’s eyes as he stares into it, and he knows that the serenity he’s feeling is false.

He cautions himself not to believe it.

At some point, he hears Phil screw the lid onto perhaps his third of the small jars of magma cream. Techno thinks he must be done, because he’d just heard him open that one a few minutes prior.

“I’m gonna go wash my hands,” he says, and Techno hears the rustling of fabric as he stands. “I’ll be right back.”

“Alright,” Techno responds without looking. He hears a very muffled, almost incoherent ‘kay come from Tommy.

Techno listens to his footsteps fade as he walks into the kitchen. He also hears the moment he realizes he still has his boots on, and his heavy footsteps fade to soft socked ones on the hardwood floors. He hears the tap turn on, and-

-from behind him, he hears a soft, quiet snuffle.

Techno freezes, listening intently. Phil putters around in the kitchen, doing god knows what, and maybe thirty seconds pass, but-

-another one. 

He turns around slowly, quietly, and pads towards the couch. He crouches down, and sure enough, Tommy’s knocked out. His face is smushed sideways against the cushion, laying on his stomach, and there’s a little string of drool that’s slowly escaping out the corner of his mouth, and his couch is certainly in jeopardy of Tommy’s saliva, but he looks so peaceful and careless that he can’t bring himself to care.

He snuffles again, nose wrinkling. One of his arms hangs off the side of the couch, brushing the floor, and one of his feet twitching underneath his mound of blankets, which are pulled down to his waist in order to apply the magma cream. Techno takes the edge of the stack of blankets and flips them up, so that they’re lightly rested at the nape of his neck.

He rests a very light hand in his hair, and begins to gently fiddle with the locks, blunt nails scraping the skin of his head. Tommy snuffles once more, but doesn’t react otherwise, so Techno decides it does no harm and continues.

Techno watches his eyes, which roll underneath his eyelids, light eyelashes fluttering just slightly. The glow of the fire reflects off his blonde hair, and for a moment, it looks as if it’s the same golden honey blonde it’s always been, rather than the pale imitation that it was when he first arrived. For a moment, with the blankets covering up all of his scars and his visible ribs and his bruises, and the flames coloring his desaturated hair with warmth, and sleep masking all the desolate ruins of his little brother with serenity, Techno can almost imagine that this is the Tommy he knew before everything fell apart.

He can almost imagine that they’re back at home, on their farm with golden fields and a screen door with a green painted frame, on the outskirts of their small village, before Dream’s kingdom was even a thought in anybody’s mind. He can almost imagine that it’s one of those nights, a few years after Tommy had arrived, where he’d beg and beg for Techno to tell him more stories about his various misadventures, eyes wide and shining with admiration. Wilbur would roll his eyes, having heard it all before, but he’d still gasp at all the shocking parts and cheer at all the fun parts. 

I wanna be just like you, he’d always say, and Techno would shake his head. No you don’t, he’d think, but he wouldn’t say, because Tommy was nine years old, and that was far too young an age to ruin something so precious.

So he would oblige him, unable to resist his pleading, till the sky outside was black and inky, and Tommy’s eyes would begin to droop without realizing it. He’d slide lower and lower into Wilbur’s side, till Techno’s stories would fade to silence, and his feet would start kicking and he would start to make that ever familiar snuffling noise.

And when the time came for him to go to his bed, the same argument would ensue, every time. Just wake him up, he’ll fall right back asleep, Techno would say, and Wilbur always looked at him with the most dramatically devastated eyes he’d ever seen. We can’t! He’d say, and Techno would roll his eyes in exasperation. Just look at him.

He never did give an explanation. Just always expected Techno to understand.

Techno thinks he finally does, now, when Phil comes into the room with a bowl in hand.

“Hey, I’ve got some st-”

“Shh,” Techno hisses quietly, and Phil’s jaw clicks shut. “He’s asleep.”

Phil stares at him, stunned.

Then, his eyes scrunch up and his mouth can’t help but follow with a small, bewildered smile. He presses his lips together tightly, and puts a closed fist to his lips in an attempt to keep from laughing.

“I fucking knew it,” Phil whispers. “He kept nodding off and jerking awake and I was like, dude, your foot’s already kicking. Just. Give it up and go to sleep.” Phil casts a small but fond smile to Tommy. “I think it was the magma cream. I was rubbing it into his shoulders, right, and they were so tense, just absolutely covered in knots, like he’d been trying to deadlift boulders or some shit. So I worked them out, obviously, and since he was so warm he was just out like a light. I’m honestly surprised he lasted that long.”

Phil hesitates, smile slipping marginally.

“Or maybe it was just ‘cause he’s sick. That would make more sense, probably, considering exhaustion is a symptom of hypothermia.”

“Yeah. Either way, he’s out cold, which is a good thing,” Techno responds.

Phil sighs. “It does mean we’ll have to treat his wounds tomorrow, though, and just hope he doesn’t get an infection.”

The dark smoke of curiosity which he’d suppressed in face of the urgency of the situation comes rising to the surface again, now that things have settled down a bit, and Techno can’t deny the desire to question Phil any longer.

But not there, where Tommy is sleeping, and could wake up and hear them. Besides- the voices won’t stop hissing quiet into his ears, and he’s not in the mood to fight with them.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” he says.

They head into the kitchen, where Phil wordlessly holds out the bowl in his hands, which contains little slices of steak. Techno hasn’t eaten in a while, but honestly, he’s not really looking forward to this conversation, and the nerves serve to unsettle his stomach, so he shakes his head.

Techno hops up to sit on the kitchen counter beneath the small window, and Phil leans a hip against the table. He takes a bite of one of the pieces of steak, and the silence that settles then is tense.

He knows that Phil feels it, too, because he suddenly begins to ramble with his mouth full just to break it.

“Y’know, the cow that this steak used to be was really a wild one. He was super quick, even in the snow, and he kept winding back and forth and stuff so it was harder for me to catch him, and he even, like, fell into the pond, you know the one over past the village? Yeah. I chased him that far. I felt kinda bad, because I’d got him on the leg, so he was limping and it was just- it wasn’t good, uh, and I really wished he could’ve had a quick and painless-”

“Phil,” Techno cuts him off. Phil looks at him like a deer in the face of a drawn arrow, and Techno sighs. “What happened?”

“....To the cow?” Phil says, and chuckles nervously. “Well, you know, I’ve got this bowl here, and-”

“To Tommy.”

Phil’s silent for a second, body tense like a live wire, and then suddenly, he goes limp with a heavy sigh.

“I knew you were gonna ask,” he relents.

“Well, with the way you crashed this place like the fucking apocalypse was on your heels, I think maybe I have the right to have a few questions,” Techno replies.

Phil swallows, and says, “Yeah. I know.”

Then, he seems to deflate, leaning his weight against the table and burying his face in his hands.

“God, I should’ve known that being alone would weigh on him this much-”

“Of course he didn’t do well alone. It’s Tommy, ” Techno reassures. “That’s why I thought it might help him realize that the formation of government was a bad decision.”

“ Right,” Phil says, and he spits the word out like it burns his tongue. “But- but I didn’t realize it’d be that bad-”

“You can’t blame yourself, Philza,” he argues. “You visited him. You helped him set up his little beach party and everything, and he didn’t even invite you. I’m not surprised that I wasn’t invited, but you?” Techno shakes his head. “He made the decision not to let you in. He’s just as much to blame for his own solitude as everyone else.”

He holds Phil’s gaze with his own, and though they’ve had this conversation countless times before, he still feels like Phil doesn’t quite believe him.

“I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, it’s not on you, okay?” Phil looks at him doubtfully. “It’s not.”

Techno holds the silence for a few seconds, and then sighs. “So tell me what happened.”

“...I don’t…. I’m not sure if I should,” Phil says uncertainly.

“What do you mean?” Techno asks, taken aback.

Phil is silent for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice is rough.

“I just… I just don’t know how much I should tell you,” he says, and he avoids Techno’s eyes.

“Everything?” He tries.

“I would- really, I want to, but… I think, maybe, there are some things he might not want you to know.” Phil rubs a hand across his forehead and braces both hands on the edge of the table behind him. His wings shift uncomfortably, and his eyebrows are furrowed down in indecision.

“I would like to think that I deserve to know what the hell happened to Tommy that would leave him half dead on my couch,” Techno insists, frustrated.

“You deserve to know, but he deserves the right to decide whether or not to tell you.”

Techno grits his teeth, and for the first time in a long time, he loses his composure enough that his tusks extend far enough for the sharp white tips to pop out between his lips.

He pushes himself to take a deep breath despite the way the voices demand answers, and forces his tusks to retract back into his lower jaw, though they refuse to return fully, leaving his cheeks just slightly puffed with the additional mass.

“Then what can you tell me?” He grits out.

Phil hesitates, looking at him with something in his face that looks a little bit like concern and a little bit like apprehension.

“Your tusks haven’t popped like that since-”

“Just tell me, Philza,” he snaps, and he regrets it immediately when he sees the way Philza’s expression closes off with frustration, like he’s just done with Techno’s shit for the moment. 

“He almost died in the nether. I saved him, flew him back here in the rain and snow. We had to land a few times to avoid getting electrocuted, because the storm was bad, so it took longer than it should have, and he got too cold. That’s it.” Phil looks him in the eyes, then, and they’re softer than his grim face. “If you wanna know more, you’ll have to ask Tommy.”

“I will,” Techno retorts, but his tone is gentler, less angry than the words make it seem.

 Phil seems to relent at that, expression slipping from his face to resemble something more fretful and concerned.

“Be...Be nice about it, though,” he says. “I don't… Tech, I don’t know what he went through before I found him, but it was… it was bad.”

What happened? Who hurt brother? Shout the voices. Find them. Kill. Make them pay. Blood for the blood god.

For once, Techno wholeheartedly agrees.

“I think Dream did something to him,” Phil adds. “He, uh… he begged me not to send him back to Dream, when I found him. He seemed really scared.”

Dream, hiss the voices. Dream. Kill Dream. Hunt him down and make him hurt, hurt, hurt-

“Don’t worry,” he tells Phil. “I’ll be careful.” 

He resolutely ignores the voices.

Phil nods, and is then interrupted by a long yawn. Techno snorts. They don’t have a clock in the kitchen, but if he had to guess, he’s certain that it would be sometime in the very early morning.

“You should get some sleep,” Techno says.

Phil gives him a small, fond smile. “So should you.”

Techno huffs, amused. “Nah. I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”

Used to his wack ass sleep schedule, Phil simply nods. “Alright. Suit yourself, then.” He goes to leave, then, but pauses in the doorway to ask, hesitantly, “As long as you’re down here, could you, uh… could you maybe…”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Techno affirms, knowing how much of a worrier his dad was.

Phil smiles, relieved. “Thank you, Techno.”

They bid each other goodnight, and Techno heads to lie down on the other sofa in his living room, which is perpendicular the one Tommy lies on. He watches him, watches the blankets rise and fall in tandem with his breathing, and revels in the relative peace.

 It doesn’t last long, of course; he’s alone. And it is when he is alone that the voices scream the loudest.

He’s used to it, but that doesn’t really make it any more pleasant. Tonight, they mostly yell about Tommy; he doesn’t blame them, considering that’s mostly what’s on his mind, too. They want to know what happened, and who hurt him, and they want to tear them limb from limb. They want to tear their very skin from their bones and bathe in the blood. They want to burn everything they care about to the ground and breathe in the ashes.

(Honestly, Techno kind of does, too.)

Unfortunately, he’s not being told shit, so. He can’t.

He doesn’t know for sure if it was Dream, and he can’t go around taking lives without knowing for a fact that he did something.

He rolls onto his back and stares, exhausted, at the wooden ceiling. He wishes he could sleep, but on nights like this, he never manages it.

Eventually, though, the voices quiet down to mere whispers. They aren’t silent, but Techno didn’t expect them to be. They quiet down enough that, over the clamor, he can just hear Tommy’s sleep snuffling.

It’s oddly reassuring.

It’s not as odd, though, as the fact that a few minutes later, he falls asleep.

Strangely, he dreams of nothing.

★★★★★

When Tommy wakes up, the first thing he registers is that he is far too warm.

He feels like he’s being boiled alive, really. He’s sweating so heavily that he feels a bead of it slide down his temple and into his ear, which makes him wince stiffly. He can feel his pants sticking to the backs of his knees, and when he finally manages to wrench his swollen eyes open, he realizes he’s still buried underneath approximately three million blankets.

Okay. So maybe it’s just five. Whatever. It’s not relevant.

 Regardless, he whines in discomfort and throws them off, pushing himself to a sitting position and rubbing his eyes.

That’s when he registers the second thing: he feels like shit.

His head is spinning from having sat up too fast, but aside from that, he’s congested and his throat hurts and every joint in his body aches with some strange sort of stiffness. Every inch of his skin hums, like a sleeping limb, but not quite.

Worst of all, his chest aches like something has been left to decay inside.

(Vaguely, he recognizes that other parts of his body hurt, too. Like his side, which pulses with dull pain with every breath he takes, or his elbow, which stings sharply every time he bends it too far, or the multitude of still healing cuts from Dream’s light whacks. He ignores those, because he’s used to them.)

The third thing he registers is that he feels disgusting, cleanliness wise. He’s covered in dirt, of course, but that’s nothing new- it’s only different, now, because though most of the magma cream has seeped harmlessly into his skin, some of it has combined with the dirt to make an absolutely abhorrent sort of congealed paste. It leaves him feeling both crusty and slimy at the same time, and he desperately needs a shower. Or an ocean. Or a river. Whatever’s nearby. He wonders where the bathroom is, here, and if they have a bathtub. He figures if they did, he could probably be in and out of there before either of them woke up.

Looking out the window, he sees that the sky is still dark. Snow still plummets at an alarming rate, and he can hear the wind howl from inside. He wonders how long he was out for.

He stands, and then immediately sits back down when his head throws such a big fit that his vision goes black for a moment.

Rubbing his eyes and trying to keep himself together, he takes a few deep breaths. 

When he opens his eyes, ready to try again, he has to physically force himself not to make some embarrassing noise in surprise.

Techno is on the other couch, yawning, blinking at him with bleary eyes.

That bitch had always been a light sleeper.

Their eyes meet, like they had last night, and that same feeling of resignation floods over Tommy.

Techno’s dangerous. Always has been. There’s never been any use in denying that.

Of course, he never thought that that danger would apply to him. Not until the destruction of his country. Not until you wanna be a hero, Tommy? Then die like one.

Now, though, he knows it does. Techno looks unguarded, unarmed, and barren of armor, but Tommy is sure that he’s got something hidden up his sleeve. Something that could take Tommy down in a heartbeat if he were to try anything.

The thing is, Tommy doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t care, because it doesn’t matter. Techno will do what he wants to do regardless of anything Tommy says or does, so there’s no point in fighting back. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable, whether that be kicking Tommy out of his house despite Phil’s wishes, or something worse.

Besides, what’s the worst he could do? Kill him?

(Tommy almost laughs. Almost. It sits in his throat, dark and wild, with sharp, unsanded edges that cut into his windpipe every time he swallows. It really is a good thing that Tommy’s used to the taste of blood.)

He hadn’t done anything last night. In fact, he vaguely recalls Techno helping him- he’d been as annoying as he always was, but no more. No yelling, or fire, or words sharper than precision blades.

He remembered Techno laying blanket after blanket over him and, eventually, a hand far too heavy set to be Phil’s sifting through his hair as he hovered on the edge of sleep.

But that doesn’t mean anything,

That doesn’t negate the possibility that he was simply biding his time. Lying in wait for the moment Phil stepped aside and Tommy was vulnerable.

He wonders if Techno will be excited or disappointed when he doesn’t fight back.

So Tommy stares, and waits.

Thunder rumbles over the wind.

Techno opens his mouth, and Tommy expects poison. He expects fire. He expects acid and vitriol and tar to come seeping out of his lips.

He expects to be burned.

“Tommy,” Techno says. 

Tommy waits for his skin to char.

“What are you doing awake?”

Tommy stares, and his skin remains unscathed.

It shocks him so much that when he opens his mouth to respond, he finds that nothing comes out. He gapes like a fish, and when Techno raises one eyebrow, he clicks his jaw shut, and opts to simply shrug instead.

“You should go back to sleep,” Techno says trepidatiously. “You need the rest.”

Tommy opens his mouth once more, and an almost inaudible squeak slips out. He doesn’t know why this turn of events has rendered him so inept. It just… he didn’t expect this.

He’d expected the worst, and now that he’s gotten something else- something bizarre and strange and simultaneously unrecognizable and unbearably familiar to him- he just doesn’t know how to react.

“‘M not tired,” He says.

“Maybe not,” agrees Techno. “But you probably shouldn’t be up and walking around yet. You were, uh… you were pretty fucked up.”

Tommy chafes at the implication, and stubbornly stands, just to prove a point. 

The world begins to tilt dangerously, and familiar black spots dance across his vision. He sways, dizzy,  but miraculously manages to remain upright.

Or, maybe, it wasn’t miraculous at all, considering he comes back into his body to see Techno with his hands tightly gripping his shoulders, peering at him with a concerned expression.

“Jesus christ,” Techno mutters breathlessly. “Don’t do that.”

He hates it. He hates the look of concern when it’s directed at him. He hates pity, and he hates the way it always feels patronizing. Like he’s a little kid who needs his hand held through everything.

He’s not helpless.

He stiffly moves out from under Techno’s hands, and to his surprise, Techno relents immediately, jerking his hands away like Tommy had burned him.

This really is not how he’d imagined this going.

“Do you have a bathtub?” he blurts.

Techno squints, obviously bewildered. Tommy realizes, briefly, that he’s not wearing a shirt- but he’ll just take it off again when he bathes, so he lets it be.

“Uh, yeah? I do? Why do you wanna know?”

“Because I need to take a bath,” he says bluntly.

Techno stares,

“I promise, I won’t take too long. Ten minutes, tops. I won’t even use your heater- I can use cold water, I don’t care. I just need to wash this off-”

“It- it’s not that,” Techno stammers. “I don’t… I don’t give a shit about the heater, Tommy, it took Phil like two seconds to set it up. You know how he is with redstone. It’s just that Phil said the warm water could burn you, or send you into shock, I dunno. And I just- I don’t wanna be held accountable if you take a bath and pass out or something.”

“So turn around, then. Plausible deniability. I’ll just find it on my own, your house can’t be that big-”

“No, Tommy, hold on- hold on, ” he repeats when Tommy moves to walk away. “I’ll show you where the bathtub is, I just… genuinely don’t think you should take a bath right now,” Techno explains.

“Why not?” Tommy pushes.

“Because I don’t want you to go into shock and drown, dumbass,” Techno insists.

Tommy happens to think that that wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, but he’s distracted by the way the sharp worry sparks something warm and vulnerable in his chest.

He hates the way his subconscious brain sometimes regresses back to his childhood, when any drop of kindness or care from Techno would send him over the moon with excitement.

He knows better, now, so he snuffs out the stupid flame as soon as it lights.

“Well, I’m gonna go take one whether you help me find it or not, so.”

Techno squints, hmm ing quietly, pondering.

“I have an idea,” he says. “Stay here.”

Techno races off to some other room, and Tommy seriously considers wandering off just to spite him, but decides against it when he feels the way his knees shake just standing there.

Techno returns, holding a sponge, and leads him down a hallway to their right. He opens the middle door, and sure enough, there’s a bathtub.

Techno turns both of the knobs a few times, testing out the water temperature, before deeming it acceptable and leaving it to fill up.

“Cool,” Tommy says. “Thanks. Just let me know where the towels are, and I’m set-”

“You’re not taking a bath, Tommy," Techno says, and he says it like it's non negotiable. Like it's set in stone. Like Tommy can’t even try to argue.

And Tommy knows he can’t, but that doesn’t make it any less irritating.

"Then what are we doing here?"

Techno takes a deep breath and holds his hands out peacefully, placatingly, like he knows Tommy won't like what he's about to say.

“I remember reading something once," he begins slowly.

"Congrats! I know you've never been able to do that before-"

"-about how you can give a hypothermic baby a sponge bath as a safe way to bathe them, so I thought, if it's safe for a baby, it's probably safe for you-”

“I'm not a baby-”

“Well, it’s this or nothing at all," he says resolutely. “So what’s it gonna be?”

Tommy stares, jaw clenched, and then decides that it’s not worth it.

“Fine.”

He plops down on the floor beside the tub, snatches the sponge from where Techno had deposited it, and dunks it into the water. He pulls it out and goes straight for his arms, haphazardly scrubbing at it, before Techno snatches the sponge away.

“Woah, woah, woah, stop,” Techno blurts. Tommy stares. “You have to wring it out before you start. The point of a sponge bath is that it doesn’t get you very wet- you just wipe the dirt off. And you do it gently. You don’t scrub at your skin like it’s stained. Good god.”

You’re wrong, he thinks. My whole body is stained. You just can’t see it.

Techno wrings the sponge out into the bath and hands it back to him, joining him in sitting on the floor across from him. Tommy’s upper lip curls in irritation, but he takes the sponge and goes back to that same arm. Despite what Techno had said, he still scrubs- he scrubs in a useless attempt to shed every bit of his skin that remains from hours before. He doesn’t want any of it.

Within seconds, though, he notices an issue. The joints of his fingers are stiff, and clumsy, and holding the sponge becomes increasingly more difficult as his grip begins to loosen against his will. He can’t hold it tight enough anymore to keep it in his hands and, eventually, it slides out from underneath his hand to land on the floor with a dissatisfying splat.

Techno stares at the sponge, and then at him.

“Do you want me to do it?” he asks.

“ No,” he snaps, angrily picking the sponge back up. “I can do it, it’s fine.”

But alas, a mere matter of seconds later, the sponge drops again.

He takes it in hand again, and this time, he lasts a solid fifteen seconds before it falls.

Tommy huffs in frustration and humiliation. It’s- it’s the fucking magma cream all over again.

He hates feeling like this. Like he can’t do simple tasks that he should be able to do, but, apparently, he isn’t strong enough for.

Tommy sighs as Techno wordlessly picks up the sponge.

“I’m- I’m not weak,” he says, and the words are intended to sound angry. Instead, they just sound desperate. “I’m not helpless.”

“I never said you were,” Techno mumbles, and gestures for Tommy’s arm. He hesitates, but eventually relents, and Techno scoots closer to reach easier. Their knees almost bump into each other, but they don’t. Not quite.

Techno holds his wrist far gentler than he would’ve expected. 

He remembers a few times, at the very beginning after Phil took him in, when Techno had bathed him. Phil hadn’t trusted him not to accidentally drown if left alone- Tommy supposes he couldn’t blame him, at the time. He hadn’t known all that Tommy had been through. Didn’t know that, at seven, Tommy was used to bathing in lakes and rivers when he’d gotten filthy past the point of tolerance. (The shelters had baths, sometimes, but he hated the shelters. He’d rather deal with the cold than stay there.)

So he’d stayed with him, without fail, for almost a year, when Tommy had turned eight and told him to stop. Taught him how to wash his hair with shampoo, which Tommy’d never had access to before. But, occasionally, when Phil wasn’t able to, he’d put Techno on the job. He wasn’t as good as Phil at making sure none of the shampoo got in his eyes, but he tried, and his hands were always light and careful when he rinsed it out.

And now, Techo holds his arm in his large hands, and he’s exceedingly gentle when he wipes the sponge over his red, irritated skin. He’s far gentler than Tommy himself was, and, for some reason, Tommy feels tears just barely prick his eyes. He doesn’t know whether they’re sad, or happy, or frustrated, or nostalgic, or simply overwhelmed. He doesn’t know.

He lets Techno wash his arms, and he doesn’t wince when he very slowly, very carefully runs the sponge over the scab on his elbow.

As he goes, Techno painstakingly pats his arms dry with a fluffy hand towel after he deems that section clean enough.

He watches, entranced, as the dirt gradually clears away to leave his pale skin underneath. He watches as the red tint on his hands is meticulously washed clean by Techno’s hands. He doesn’t think about it. He just listens to the anger of the wind and thunder outside.

After his arms come his shoulders. He turns around, and Techno runs the sponge over skin in long, smooth strokes. Tommy notices that he always pauses before he runs over a cut. He wants to tell him he doesn’t have to; he barely notices them anymore. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t know why.

He does the same thing when he goes over the bruises on Tommy’s ribs from being thrown by the TNT. Unlike the cuts, those are fresh, and he barely manages to suppress a grunt of pain when he towels it dry. Techno reassures him when he does, saying things like “it’s fine, it’s almost over, don’t worry. You’re good. There you go.”

“Close your eyes,” Techno says when he reaches his face. Tommy does, and Techno dabs the sponge gently over the spot in which he’d sliced himself on a rock after being thrown. Techno lightly pushes his chin to the side, tilting his face, and swipes the sponge from his nose out towards his temples. It’s oddly soothing, and Tommy finds himself relaxing into the touch.

After finishing his face and deciding that his legs are an issue he can deal with when he can bathe alone, Techno grabs the shampoo to start on his hair. Tommy holds his head over the tub, but before he can get any water in it, he hears a soft chime come from the pocket of Techno’s pants.

Techno seems to ignore it, carrying on by grabbing the conditioner, but an unbearable curiosity strikes Tommy.

“What’s that?” he asks, and his voice is barely above a whisper, simply because anything more in the near silent bathroom would feel like blasphemy.

“Oh, probably nothing,” Techno says dismissively, waving a hand. “They’re probably just messing around. Important things never happen on there.”

“...Can I see what they said?” He questions cautiously. “I just- uh- I… I must have dropped my comm at some point.”

What he means is that it had fallen in the lava during his struggle with Phil, but Techno doesn’t need to know that.

Techno shrugs. “Sure, why not?

He wipes his wet hands on the towel, and retrieves his comm. The wind picks up, becoming louder and more aggressive. Turning it on, he reads whatever message just came through, and his brows furrow down. He looks angry, lips pulled back slightly like a snarling dog. 

“What?” Tommy asks. “What is it?”

“It’s Dream,” Techno answers, and Tommy immediately feels like he’s been punched in the throat. “He’s, uh. Looking for you, apparently.”

He feels like he might faint, and the breath catches in his throat so hard that his breathing sounds like more of a wheeze.

“He- He’s alive?”

“Pshh,” Techno rolls his eyes. “Yeah, he’s alive. He’s Dream. Not even sure the guy can die at this point.”

He feels nauseous, all of a sudden.

He desperately snatches the comm out of Techno’s hand, who glares at him, and though his hand shakes so badly that the words are nearly illegible, he miraculously manages to read it.

<Dream> Has anybody seen Tommy recently? 

He stares at the screen, and his vision begins to blur. His hands shake so hard that Techno snags it out of his hand just as he begins to drop it.

(Before he does, though he catches the next line: “ <Tubbo_> come see me”.)

His heart feels like it’s mending and tearing apart, over and over again, and his mind's a mess of conflicting emotions. He’s overjoyed, but terrified. He’s devastated, but so, so relieved.

Techno stares at him, concerned.

“Wha-”

“Thank god,” Tommy blurts. “Thank god.” 

A stupid, giddy smile stretches his lips. He buries his face in his hands and leans forward, pressing his forehead to the cool floor.

“Thank god that wasn’t his last life,” he mutters again. “Oh my god.”

Techno looks at him like he’s crazy. Tommy doesn’t blame him- he feels crazy, if he’s being honest. He’s swinging between misery and bliss and he can’t tell which one he should be feeling.

“... What wasn’t his last life?” Techno asks, and he speaks like he’s walking on broken glass. Like Tommy is a cornered animal, injured and feral.

He opts not to respond. The silence echoes.

“Tommy, did you watch Dream die?”

And oh, no, that’s funny. That’s hilarious.

He lets out a snort, and claps a hand over his mouth, because he knows it shouldn’t be funny. But it is. It’s so fucking funny, and Techno doesn’t even know.

“Techno, I didn’t just watch,” he breathes, sitting up. “I did it myself.”

And it’s true. He took one of Dream’s lives, and he knows it was one of his permanent ones, because if it wasn’t he would’ve vanished immediately.

Tommy murdered someone.

And oh, god, that hadn’t really set in until now.

He’s the one who took Dream’s life. He was dead because of him. Because he was foolish, and unreasonable, and a coward.

The laugh sticks in his throat, for just a moment, and it nearly chokes him.

Guilt rises in him, sharp and sour and acrid, and he feels it sear his ribs and his spine and the base of his skull. He thinks, maybe, some of it starts to melt, and he’ll soon be left with nothing but ashes and charred flesh.

He’s the one who fucked up. He’s the one who was keeping secrets. He was being dishonest.

He was being a bad friend, and Dream is the one who ended up dead.

“....What do you mean, Tommy?”

Tommy looks his brother in his confused, apprehensive eyes, and everything comes tearing out of him like a wildfire.

“I killed him, Techno,” he spits, and tears well up in his eyes, hot and fast, despite the rapturous smile that splits his face. He laughs, feral and carefree, and he sees Techno flinch. “I fucking killed him! I fucking killed him! He was dead! I buried him! I felt his blood on my hands and I held him as he fucking died!”

Tommy laughs, and laughs, and laughs, so hard that his chest aches, like it’s begun to crack and flake away underneath his skin.

It isn’t funny. He knows it isn’t. But there’s too much, too much filling him, so much that it seeps out between his nerve endings, out of his eyes, out of his shaking hands. It tears out of his throat, and he’s forced to either laugh or scream and Tommy chooses to laugh, because he’s had enough of screaming, and he doesn’t want to wake Phil.

He wheezes, crackling with the guilt and relief and terror of it all , and the laugh that pries his teeth apart is tired and unhinged and just a little bit deranged. 

“Aren’t you proud of me, Techno?” He asks sardonically, and he can see the moment the words hit his brother when he flinches violently, as if Tommy had slapped him. “Aren’t you proud ?”

You wanna be a hero, Tommy?

He almost regrets it, for just a moment.

Then die like one.

But he doesn’t.

His unstable laughter fades, and he’s quiet for a moment. Thick, heavy tears roll down his cheeks, but he doesn’t sob. He doesn’t shake with it. He just lets them go, dripping off of his chin to land with a splat on the bathroom floor.

He chuckles, quietly, dark and rough and hollow. It scratches his throat up on the way out, and when he looks Techno in the eyes, he looks horrified at what Tommy has become.

Good, Tommy thinks. He should be. I am, too.

“Following in your footsteps, huh?” He smiles, and it is both gentle and brutal. It is as soft as it is sharp. “Just like I always wanted.”

Lightning cracks outside, and Tommy can’t tell if it’s trying to comfort or mock him.

★★★★★

I wanna be just like you.

The voice of Tommy’s nine year old self echoes in Techno’s ears.

I wanna be just like you.

He stares into a cruel facsimile of that same child’s face as Tommy laughs and cries, shattering before Techno’s very eyes.

Techno’s heart beats, stinging, in his chest, and, for the first time in a while, he feels completely helpless.

He doesn’t know how to fix this.

His brother sits in shambles before him, and it hurts. He hates the look of surrender on Tommy’s face; the look of emptiness.

Somebody broke his little brother, and Techno would place his bets on Dream.

The voices are screaming at him, confused and twisted. They’re out for Dream’s blood, but at the same time, they’re suddenly uncertain they should be. Why would Tommy kill Dream? Was it an accident? A joke? Some mundane task gone horribly wrong?

Or is it something more sinister?

Was it self defense?

It must have been. It must have been.

“...Tommy,” he begins, and he hates the way Tommy doesn’t even twitch. “Why did you kill him?”

Tommy sucks in a breath.

“I was being stupid,” he says, and the way he says the words makes them sound fake. Rehearsed. Like Tommy is a ventriloquist’s puppet and somebody else’s voice comes out of his mouth. “Wasn’t thinking straight.”

Techno pauses, and thinks.

He has to handle this delicately. It’s suddenly clear, how fragile Tommy is right now, and Techno doesn’t want to be the one who makes his cracks crumble.

“You wouldn’t have taken one of his permanent lives if you didn’t have a good reason,” he says slowly, non confrontational. 

“No, I was being stupid,” Tommy spits. He’s got one arm crossed over his stomach, and he’s digging his nails tightly into his arm. Techno wants to make him stop, but he thinks that would probably make it worse. He’ll keep an eye on it. “I was being stupid, and I killed my best friend- he was just trying to help me-”

“Phil told me you begged him not to send you back to Dream.”

He doesn’t think, he just says it.

His brain’s tying itself in knots trying to make sense of this whole situation. He never would’ve guessed that Tommy would have ever called Dream a friend, let alone his best one . If Dream is Tommy’s best friend like he says, then why would he be so scared at the prospect of returning to him? If they’re really best friends, then where did those cuts come from? Or the bruises on his side? Or the scab on one arm, or the scorch marks on his other?

If they were really friends, what in the world made Tommy feel like he had to kill him?

“...Yeah,” Tommy confirms hesitantly.

“Why?”

Tommy pauses, mouth opening and closing, floundering.

“I don't know. I don't know. I should never have left,” Tommy rambles, and he speaks faster and faster, more frantic with every word. “Should never have attacked him, he was- he was trying to help me. I shouldn't have hidden things from him-”

“...Okay, but he hurt you, didn’t he, Tommy?”

Tommy goes silent, staring at him with wide, nervous eyes.

“He did this, right?” Techno continues, gesturing towards the bruises.

Tommy swallows, and his eyes flick around the room anxiously.

Then he nods, once, succinct.

The voices immediately rise to a roar, and Techno has to swallow down his own nausea and rage at the confirmation of his theory.

“Then... it doesn’t sound like he was your friend, Toms.”

Tommy sags like a deflating balloon. His forehead scrunches in confusion, and he mutters a soft, distressed no.

He’s silent, then, before his eyebrows slowly shift to something less sad and more angry.

Suddenly, Tommy inhales, and it’s like he breathes life .

“You’re right,” he says, and his voice is more stable than he’s heard it since he arrived. A spark of accomplishment runs through Techno at his brother’s realization. “He… he was never my friend. He was just there to watch me.”

Techno nods encouragingly. “God, what was I saying? He’s- he wasn’t trying to help me, he just… he just wanted to keep me under his thumb… he watched me.”

Tommy shakes his head and wipes both hands over his face.

“He’s the reason I was fucking alone.”

Techno doesn’t know the full story, but he can tell that Dream hurt Tommy. He hurt him bad. And he thinks he knows the answer to this question, but he wants to see if Tommy knows it, too.

“What would Dream have done, if Phil had wanted to send you back?”

Tommy fiddles with the cuffs of his pants.

“I dunno,” he mumbles, and then lets out a wry chuckle. “He might’ve killed me.”

Then, Tommy looks up, alarmed, and it’s like a switch has flipped.

“No,” he gasps. “He was my friend. He- he wouldn’t want to- hurt me.”

“Tommy, it literally looks like he beat the shit out of you,” Techno retorts, and he didn’t mean to be that blunt. It just happened. “You’re gonna tell me that he’s your- your friend, when you’ve got these-” he points towards one of the many healing cuts. “-all over you? You’re gonna tell me he’s not the one who did that?”

Tommy stammers, grasping at straws. “He did, but- but they're nothing. They don’t matter. He’s- he didn’t mean them-"

“They’re threats, Tommy,” Techno snaps, and he can tell by the way Tommy shuts up and avoids his eyes that he’s right. He stares resolutely at the floor in front of him, blinking rapidly.

He sighs, and nods, and Techno thinks, maybe, he might’ve gotten through to him.

“You know what, Toms?”

Tommy looks at him, and he swears he can see wars waging behind his eyes. An internal storm.

“I am proud you killed him. Nobody was there to help you, so you protected yourself. That’s something you should be proud of.”

Tommy’s eyes are wide and shining, and though Techno can see the lightning that strikes in them, he thinks he can see something else, too.

Something like hope.

“Thanks,” Tommy breathes, and it’s barely more than a whisper. There’s the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

But it’s more than he ever dared to hope for.

“Now, though, uh. You got me and Phil, so, like. We’d make sure he died for good before we ever let him find you.”

Tommy huffs, quietly, and mutters, “Good luck with that. He’s kind of a stubborn bastard.”

“Oh, Tommy,” Techno says. “We’re worse. We are so much worse.”

Tommy chuckles, and so does he.

“We’re gonna burn that man to the ground, just you wait.”

The voices in Techno’s head howl for blood.

Techno can’t help but agree.